Between 2009 and 2012, Rabidin Satir, nicknamed "Rambo Bentong", was suspected of committing several murders in Bentong, Pahang, Malaysia, although only two victims were ever confirmed. On 8 March 2009, Rabidin broke into the home of a 17-year-old schoolgirl, Annie Kok Yin Cheng (郭婉晶 Guō Wǎnjīng), raping her before he slit her throat, killing her instantly. Three years later, on 3 November 2012, Rabidin battered a 31-year-old forestry department employee, Khairul Hazri Jamaludin, to death with his homemade rifle.
Rabidin, who committed several rapes and property offences during his three-year crime spree in Bentong, was arrested 11 days after murdering Khairul and subsequently charged for the crimes he committed. Between 2013 and 2015, Rabidin was found guilty of killing both Kok and Khairul and sentenced to death, and had also received multiple jail terms with caning for other offences he committed prior to his arrest. Between 2016 and 2024, Rabidin lost his appeals against the death penalty for both of his two murder convictions, and has been on death row since 2024.
Personal life Rabidin Satir, a Malaysian of Dusun Muslim descent, originated from Kampung Libang Ulu in the highland interior district of Tambunan (a remote developing village right next to the district of Ranau), which is located in Sabah, East Malaysia. His family made a living by farming and they were affluent and well-respected in their hometown. His brother was a well-respected imam in the kampung.
In 2007, Rabidin later moved to West Malaysia and he settled in the forested areas of Bentong, a town in Pahang. It was there in Bentong, between 2009 and 2012, Rabidin would turn to a life of crime and brought about a reign of terror in the quiet town of Bentong throughout these three years.
Murder of Annie Kok Yin Cheng
On the early morning of 8 March 2009, at Kampung Ketari in Bentong, a teenage girl was found murdered in her home due to a possible robbery-murder bid.
17-year-old Annie Kok Yin Cheng (6 June 1991 – 8 March 2009), whose stepfather Sew Kok Wee (徐国辉 Xú Guóhuī) was the kampung headman, was last seen the night before at her home using her computer. Kok's sister showed up on the following day, stumbling upon the body of her younger sister, who had a gaping knife wound on her neck and whose body was covered in a blanket. Kok was later found to have been raped after a post-mortem examination was conducted on her body; her clothes were also being partially removed, which showed that she was likely being sexually assaulted. According to her stepfather, his stepdaughter was a quiet girl who often stayed at home using the computer and liked watching television, and her mother, who was formerly married to Kok's real father before her divorce and second marriage, also told police that her daughter's wallet was missing. An update in August 2009 revealed that an unknown male's DNA was discovered on Kok's private parts.
The police also found that at least six lighting devices were dismantled in Kok's house, which made them theorizing that the killer was someone known to the deceased, and possibly a premeditated crime. Following the revelation of Kok's murder, many residents of her kampung in Bentong hyped up security measures by using stronger metal gates and railings to protect themselves from possible intruders. Kok left behind her birth mother, stepfather, a birth sister, two half-brothers and one half-sister fathered by her stepfather, and her step-grandfather.
For the following three years, the death of Kok remained unsolved, and there were rampant rumours accusing Kok's stepfather as the true killer of the case, even though there were evidence proving that Kok's stepfather and his friend were both at Kuala Lumpur and outside Bentong when his stepdaughter was killed, and Kok's mother also believed in her husband's innocence and brushed off the rumours, which only dissipated after the arrest of Rabidin three years later in 2012. Official sources confirmed that Rabidin's DNA matched to the semen traces found on Kok's body, and he had committed the crime by intruding Kok's home and attacked her in her sleep, resulting in Kok's rape and murder.
Murder of Khairul Hazri Jamaludin On 3 November 2012, a couple was attacked at the quarters of Bentong Forestry Department, with the husband, who worked at the department, being killed while the wife was raped but survived the brutal attack.
31-year-old Khairul Hazri bin Jamaludin (1981 – 3 November 2012) and his 28-year-old pregnant wife Yuslailee binti Mat, with whom he was married for three years, were sleeping at the quarters of the forestry department when Rabidin had intruded the place with a home-made shotgun and robbed the couple at gunpoint. Rabidin also wielded his rifle at Khairul, who tried to defend himself and his wife. Khairul was overpowered by Rabidin, who repeatedly used the butt of his gun to severely bludgeon Khairul on the head several times until he became semi-unconscious. Afterwards, Rabidin went after Khairul's wife, assaulting her and despite her plea that she was pregnant, Rabidin ruthlessly ignored her cries for mercy and raped her twice in front of her husband. After stealing some jewellery, Rabidin left the area, leaving the injured couple behind. Although Khairul's wife survived her injuries, her husband, who was mortally wounded from the assault, died on the way to a hospital.
An autopsy revealed that Khairul had suffered a fractured skull and other injuries that were the cause of his death. Khairul, the youngest of eight children in his family, had only begun working at the forestry department for 18 months before he was killed, and his family, who were devastated to hear his death, called for justice to be served and urged the police to solve the case.
Other offences Suspected murders Official sources and media sources revealed that apart from Annie Kok Yin Cheng and Khairul Hazri Jamaludin, Rabidin Satir had allegedly killed another three people, all of whom were killed in Bentong.
On 3 May 2011, two years after Rabidin killed Kok, a double murder happened at a Malay kampung in Bentong, where an elderly couple in their 70s was found murdered at a double-storey wooden hut. It was suspected that Rabidin, for unspecified motives, had targeted the couple in his killing spree and the police managed to link him to the double murder through investigations.
On 29 May 2012, about five to six months before Rabidin murdered Khairul, a 63-year-old man was robbed at gunpoint at Kampung Kemansur in Bentong, before the man himself, a married father of two, was shot dead by the culprit, who was believed to be Rabidin based on the police investigations that similarly connected him to the fatal shooting, which was Bentong's first case of murder involving firearms to date. By then, the crimes committed by Rabidin, particularly the murders he committed, had shocked the whole of Bentong, with its residents finally realizing that a possible serial killer was roaming free in their quiet and peaceful town.
In October 2013, a year after Rabidin was arrested, Sin Chew Daily revealed that based on police investigations, there was a possible sixth victim, identified as a nine-year-old girl who was allegedly raped and murdered by Rabidin on an unknown date or location in Bentong, although it was widely believed in the end that Rabidin had killed a total of five people.
Other various offences Aside from the murders he committed in Bentong, Rabidin had also committed at least eight more crimes in the same region, ranging from sexual offences to property offences. Nearly all of Rabidin's offences, including the murders, were committed in various kampungs of Bentong, specifically those located near the forests. Except for the killings, all of Rabidin's crimes (if not most) were listed as below:
On 9 July 2009, between 2am and 3am, Rabidin raped a nine-year-old girl in Taman Sri Marong, Bentong.
Between 1am and 3am on 20 June 2010, Rabidin raped a 17-year-old girl in a house in Jalan Kuala Lumpur-Bentong.
On 28 April 2011, between 12.30am and 1.30am on that morning, Rabidin raped an eight-year-old girl at a riverside behind a house in Ketari, Bentong, four days before Rabidin committed a double murder at a Malay kampung in Bentong.
On 12 October 2011, Rabidin attacked a 16-year-old girl in a house in Ketari, Bentong between 1am and 2.30am, and he raped and sodomized the teenager.
On 12 December 2011, Rabidin intruded a durian plantation in Bentong and fired multiple shots at a family of seven who were keeping watch at the plantation. Luckily, none of the seven were hurt during the shooting.
On Christmas Day of 2011 (25 December 2011), at a goat farm in Karak, Bentong, Rabidin had committed an offence of attempted murder by shooting at an Indonesian goat farm worker, who survived the shooting.
On 10 January 2012, Rabidin intruded a rubber plantation in Bentong and attacked an elderly female plantation worker, who was raped by Rabidin.
On the night of 7 June 2012, nine days after he murdered a Kampung Kemansur resident by shooting, Rabidin brandished a gun and robbed a 70-year-old Chinese woman, who was a local resident of Bentong, and had attempted to rape and strangle the old woman before he escaped from the victim's house, and the victim survived her ordeal. This was the last crime Rabidin would commit before he murdered Khairul Hazri Jamaludin nearly four months later.
Arrest After the murder of Khairul Hazri Jamaludin, the public, full of shock over the brutality of the offence and some other previous severe crimes that happened in Bentong, urged the police to quickly investigate and close these cases. The police also promised the public that they would, to the fullest extent, investigate and solve all these cases to ensure that the killer was brought to justice and conducted a manhunt for the perpetrator. Eventually, 11 days after he committed his fifth murder, Rabidin Satir was finally identified by police as a prime suspect and arrested on 14 November 2012. During the course of his arrest, Rabidin attempted to resist arrest by attacking a police constable named Mohd Suhaimi Md Razali at Taman Shahbandar Husin, Bentong and caused grievous hurt to him with a parang, and attempted to kill the police officer to no avail.
During the course of police investigations, the authorities managed to discover that Rabidin was responsible for the 2009 unsolved rape-murder of Annie Kok Yin Cheng, and linked him to both the Bentong Malay kampung double murder and Kampung Kemansur murder case, as well as linking him to some other cases of robbery and sexual assaults. On 13 December 2012, a month after his arrest, Rabidin was officially charged with the murder of Annie Kok Yin Cheng and the rape of four other minors aged between eight and 17, and one count of unnatural sex with one of the four minors he raped. A charge of rape carried the maximum sentence of 30 years' imprisonment with possible caning while an offence of murder carried the mandatory death penalty in the Malaysian Penal Code. On the same day he was charged, Rabidin pleaded guilty to raping the nine-year-old girl but denied murdering Kok, although his plea of guilt was turned down by the magistrate.
On 18 January 2013, when Rabidin appeared in court once again to undergo preliminary hearings for the existing charges and other crimes he was yet to be charged for, the families of his deceased victims, including Annie Kok's stepfather and mother, the Malay couple's two daughters, nephew and relatives, and the Kampung Kemansur resident's brother-in-law, all appeared in court to catch the first glimpse of the Bentong serial killer, who had been escorted by ten heavily armed policemen for the safety of the members of the public present in the courtroom.